The Thing About Perfect
by Rothery
Summary: Perfect was dead, it was the ideal beauty that only few people had the idiocy to look for anymore. Alice/Claire


_**A/N: Another Alice/Claire fic. Rated T for swearing and sexual reference.**_

_**Was listening to No Doubt's 'Push and Shove' album, and so I've put subtle references to the songs in this story.**_

_**Enjoy...**_

* * *

'So tell me what's so great about perfect?' Alice asked with a sultry smirk, as she tried to bring her heart rate back down from the clouds. If she'd had a cigarette she'd be smoking it, it was always a necessity of hers after a bout of sex, but somewhere along the way, her pristine packet had been lost, not that one could really complain about their absence during something as widespread as an apocalypse.

The woman besides her could only chuckle, her breathing coming out of her mouth in short rugged pants. The blush still staining her porcelain cheeks made Alice instantly want to go for 'round two'. The redhead was absolutely stunning, flawed obviously, but then again who wasn't. Besides, what _was_ so great about perfect? Perfect was dead, it was the ideal beauty that only few people had the idiocy to look for anymore, especially in a world so broken and torn, but nowadays, Alice thought, people merely called it hope.

'Fuck knows,' Was Claire's less that imaginative answer, 'why? Did I say something, I can't remember. I think you may have caused me to short circuit. _Jesus! _I need a smoke_. Dammit!_' Claire shuffled, searching through the various items of scattered clothes; Alice watched her curiously but couldn't help but laugh lightly at the other woman's antics, before she wrapped her arms around Claire's waist and pulled the redhead back towards her.

Alice really wished she had a cigarette now, the want – no- the need to satisfy this woman to the point of paralysis was fast filling her brain. _Heck_, it had been since they were first introduced, it had felt like a gravitational pull that kept them colliding into each other, an inevitable clash of the alphas, something that Alice like to call chemistry, and for Claire, denial, and for everyone else, sexual tension that could've been cut like a knife.

Claire kept her distance, to busy raising the spirits of her convoy to acknowledge Alice and the growing feelings there, at least that's how it went until Alice, after who knows how long, brought up Alaska.

To say Claire was hurt by what she saw as betrayal of these people, who were giving their lives to a stranger on the chance of hope, was an understatement.

'_To Alaska...'_ perhaps it was made worse by the fact that the thought of Alaska had given her a little bit of hope too.

That night, had kinda been a hustle on Alice's part. They'd stopped at yet another small gas station, and much like all the others had been bled dry of fuel and supplies. All except for one packet of Camels, still wrapped neatly in a blanket of cellophane, which the blonde had found tucked behind the cigarette machine and had kept, for the time being, to herself.

She'd joined Claire by the fire, the only two left awake, and they'd sat quietly for an age before either of them had spoken.

'_I suppose I should thank you, but I don't quite know how, I may not like it, but you've given these people back some shred of hope, I just hope that this Arcadia is all you say it is, otherwise I will go all Redfield on your ass.'_ Claire despite her threat, was smiling, it was nice, actually, to see this normally stoic woman smile for a change.

It was defiantly nice.

'_I know you don't trust me, but I admire you, ya know? For what you've done here, and for what you're doing. It shows character.'_

'_I never said I didn't trust you Alice, because I do, Scouts honour,' _Claire said as she saluted the blonde, making them both chuckling, _'It's just...'_ the redhead had sighed, her sentence left unfinished.

'_It's just what?'_

Claire opened her mouth, ready to spill whatever it was that was on her mind, before pursing her lips together, throwing Alice a bemused look and shrugging her shoulders.

And that's where the cigarettes' came into play, the crinkling of the cellophane packet made Claire look up, her eyes as surprised as they had been when her dad on her eighteenth birthday had given her a beat up old motorcycle that she'd spent all summer fixing up.

'_Where'd you get those?'_ Alice just smirked that God awful smirk as she placed the first cigarette from the box to her lips and lit it up and inhaled as if it were the first and last ever intake of nicotine she might have. To watch, it was probably the most erotic thing Claire had seen in a while, and she hated her own body for reacting to it.

'_It's. Just. What?'_ Alice asked again, shaking the box in front of Claire's face. The redhead lunged for the carton, only to fail epically, and fall halfway onto Alice's lap; Claire smiled wickedly as she heard the sharp intake of breath Alice took halfway through a drag.

She crawled up Alice, literally. The blonde had been nearly on her back, elbows deep in the sand, by the time Claire's face was in front of hers, so very close.

'_It's just that I really need a cigarette!' _Claire exclaimed, once again trying to swipe the box from Alice, and was once again foiled in her attempts as Alice had taken her wrist in her free hand and pulled the redhead even closer, Claire could taste the cigarette on Alice's breath; she barely had time to focus before Alice's lips were on hers, and by God, it felt good.

It was wet and messy, and it didn't take long before it felt like hands were everywhere, feeling groping, caressing.

Claire barely even registered the Hummer when they reached it, being pulled inside like a rag doll, or where (and when) their clothes had gone, it was a blur, and it had felt amazing.

'_Aren't first times supposed to be perfect?'_ she'd muttered as Alice stole her mouth once again, before deft fingers made their way down her stomach, and further still before hitting the mother load, and from then on all thought, rational or otherwise, was lost.

Just like the packet of Camels she'd had earlier. Or so she thought, as smoke drifted to her nostrils and as she peeked over Claire's shoulder, there between her lips was a cigarette, and the packet clamped tightly in her palm.

But unlike Alice, Claire smirked and took it from her lips and put it between Alice's, before lighting up another one; the blonde had never been more grateful.

They both lay on their backs staring at the smoke swirling above their heads, in tendrils, relishing in this little piece of heaven as the sun drifted in through the windscreen.

'Now this is fucking perfect.' Alice laughed, but couldn't disagree.

It really was perfect.

End

* * *

_**A/N: Reviews = Welcome **_


End file.
